Paintings Stolen from Russian Jewish Museum

Five paintings by 19th-century Russian Jewish landscape painter Isaac Levitan have been stolen from a museum in his honor, regional officials said on Wednesday.

The paintings, part of its permanent collection of the artist known for his "mood landscapes" of the Russian countryside were stolen in the early hours of Tuesday according to a statement published on the Ivanovo region's government website.

An anonymous official in the regional culture ministry cited by Interfaxsaid the paintings had not been insured. They are estimated to be worth 77 million rubles ($2.1 million, 1.6 million euros).

Officials said the thieves alerted police when they tripped an alarm at the museum, which is located in a house in which Levitan once lived.